All We Have Is Now
by serendeputy
Summary: Atlanta is not what broadcasts promised; weeks of walking, fighting, and ultimately surviving has left one young girl bone wary and tired. 'Quiet, calm, conscious,' is the words she lives by, but one group of ragged survivors helps the girl open her heart and her voice. Possible Daryl/OC (not Daryl/Carol). Set prior to season one.


**AN; I've never put a story on the internet before, so this is kind of a scary moment for me. I'd love it if you readers would be willing to review; constructive criticism is very helpful for beginner writers like me. Dialogue isn't my strength, which you will notice, and neither is crafting scenes. Please keep an open mind, though. **

**I'm also new the whole Walking Dead Fandom. I've seen all the episodes up to date, but I feel like my story is eventually going to go a little off the show's plot. With that in mind, I'd like to add that I own nothing in this story other than my original thoughts and ideas, including my original character, Elodie. Sexy Daryl and the other cast belong to AMC writers and the creators of the comics. So, without further ado, enjoy!**

Atlanta loomed on the horizon. Sky scrapers reached to the clouds with their windows shrouded in a high fog. Overpasses cast shadows over the thousands of cars that had once been occupied by terrified citizens of the lovely city. They littered the left side of the highway; an eerie reminder of those who had been lost during the first few days of the outbreak.

A lone girl walked along the right of the road. She had all four lanes to herself, a common occurrence in this new world.

She counted her steps in the back of her mind. _One, two, three, four. _A way to keep herself awake. To stay alert. To remember. Her feet followed the white dotted lines on the road. They had once been painted there so cars would know they could cross to another lane, but now they were just a path to test a lone survivors balance.

The clouds were just as eerie as the shadows cast upon the empty shells of what humanity once was. Yet, the obstruction of the sun was welcomed.

Georgia was a hot state; especially so in the beginning months of summer. Sweat stains spread from under the girls arms and in a waterfall over the back of her shirt where her dirty hair rested. A thin line of perspiration coated her upper lip. If there were people around, the girl would have wiped it away. There were no people, and the girl felt no need.

It was only mid morning, but already the temperature was in the mid nineties with an oppressive weight of humidity to top off the unbearable, unrelenting summer heat.

Thus, the girl welcomed the clouds with a small, sad smile. At least they provided amnesty from UV rays that slowly turned the girls skin a painful pink when she traveled outside of the woods.

Cars were not the only tell-tale signs of a lost civilization. Shells of buildings that had been bombed on that first, terrifying night sat hunched and broken on the slowly browning grass near the outskirts of the city. The skyscrapers on the horizon remained whole, though. This sight brought a small sliver of hope to the girl's heart.

She was wary from her travels. She was wary from her losses, her pain, and her loneliness. She was especially wary from the ever prevalent threat; the walking dead.

The only way to keep safe from being bitten, or eaten, or scratched was to sever the brain of the dead.

A machete, bloody from weeks of use, was firmly gripped in the right hand of the girl. It was a trustworthy weapon with a thirteen inch blade and rubber handle that felt comfortable in her grip. The girl wasn't an experienced gun handler. Sure, during her childhood she had spent time with her father while he hunted, but those times hadn't included much training. Guns were impractical in this world anyways. They could shoot straight and true, but the noise could bring unwanted attention to yourself. A machete. Well, a machete could get the job done quickly and quietly if the wielder knows what they're doing.

The city began to loom closer to the girl. She continued to count her steps. _One, two, three, four_. Not only for the aforementioned reasons, but also to keep herself from letting other, darker, thoughts break free of their tightly enclosed prison. There was no need for her to feel fear creep up her spine. No need to doubt the emergency broadcasts that had told her, weeks ago, that Atlanta would be safe.

Instead, the girl continued to count. She flexed her fingers over and over again on the rubber handle of her machete. She breathed evenly.

She remained focused and alert as her quiet footsteps fell away from the dotted white lines. She kept her thoughts centered as she traveled down the exit ramp that clearly proclaimed 'Downtown Atlanta' on the sign hanging above her head.

* * *

Dark shadows obstructed the layout of the store the girl was walking into. The machete left a train of blood on the floor as she walked, but the girl dismissed the thought of a threat from it. The dead didn't follow the scent of their own decayed blood. The backdoor, behind the building in an ally crowded with dumpsters and decayed corpses, had been left unlocked. Not ajar, which would be problematic, but unlocked.

So the girl had quickly let herself in.

Hours of fighting off the dead had left her bones aching and her head throbbing.

She wanted to cry. The sorrow of knowing that Atlanta was not what she had been promised carved deep into her heart like the serrated edge of her hunting knife. 'Quiet, calm, and conscious' were her rules, though. They were a mantra she repeated to herself when counting couldn't help. '_Quiet, calm, conscious'_ had kept her alive.

The sun wasn't set yet, but the tall buildings blocked the horizon and the pink rays of afternoon light at ground zero. Thus, the store was completely dark. Both a blessing and a curse.

The girl knew there were windows in the front of the building. Important buildings in the city were fortified with bullet proof glass, but she was closer to the outskirts now. If the dead smelled her, heard her, or saw her...well, the thin planes of glass wouldn't do much good.

So she kept to the back of the building. A fear of being heard crept it's way around the repeated manta. The girl knew she was breathing loud. Panting, actually, from the effort of outrunning hundreds of decaying bodies.

Fumbling, as quietly as possible, in the dark the girl unclasped the top of the army bag she had procured from the body of a fallen soldier. The couple liters of water packed securely at the bottom of the pack had made the weight seem unbearable during her long walk earlier, but now she was thankful for her gut instinct. Half the bottle was gone in seconds. Her breathing returned to a normal, steady pace as dehydration faded into a memory. _Quiet, calm, conscious._

* * *

Like the bag hanging on her back had once belonged to a stranger, the map held in her hand was also a procured item. The big piece of paper could only been seen fully if she spread her arms out wide, and even then she couldn't view the bottom or the corners. The girl couldn't risk stopping and placing the map on the ground, though.

Water had run out yesterday. Food disappeared the day before that.

Too frightened to journey back into the heart of the city to find provisions, the girl had opted for looking for natural bodies of water outside of the city limits.

A quarry, marked in small font near the top right of the map, was her destination. She just didn't know how to get herself there.

Looking at the map was a necessary risk. It meant momentary blindness, a lack of weapon in her hand, and a distraction from her counting. None of these things bode well with the girl, but she was feeling light headed and thirsty. Death would be more likely to come naturally on the side of the dirt road she now walked along than the risen dead.

Carefully, having looked over all the area around the quarry on the map, the girl folded it back into it's preferred shape and slid it down the front of her shirt. She removed her machete from its sheath on her hip and watched her surroundings as she walked.

The grass along the side of the one-lane road was too high for much visibility. Yet, the vegetation was flourishing in the oppressive, dry weather of the past few weeks. The city no longer loomed on the horizon, a beacon of crushed hopes and lost dreams for all those who visited. For all those who had been lead astray by their own desire for peace and security.

The girl let this realization settle into her mind. She felt safer, more alert, without Atlanta dominating her calm thoughts.

The girl kept walking even though the sun seemed to sap the very life out of her skin through her pores.

She barely registered the fact that vibrant green grass gave way to sheer walls of rock a hundred feet high. She failed to notice that the road had well worn tire tracks in the pebbles. Tire tracks that should have been washed away during the last rain storm.

The girl did, however, smile to the sky when she rounded a final corner and saw the beautiful expanses of blue water stretch out before her.

More than anything, she was impressed with herself for being able to find her way here.

A pain bloomed in the shoulder of the girl, too fast for her disorientated brain to register. She fell backwards at the force of it, confused as her body crashed uncomfortably onto a bed of rocks and dirt. Something broke in her pack, but the sound confused her more than anything.

Sticky, warm liquid pooled under her shirt and in little streams across her soft skin, only to stop when the rivets met the cloth.

The girl couldn't move. Her body was too tired, her mind trying to classify all the new feelings and sensations into appropriate sections of her brain.

Foreign memories flooded the forefront of the girl's mind; the spot usually occupied with counting and mantras.

"_Sing me a melody,_" a voice whispered from a far away place. Brows furrowed, trying to put a face to the voice, the girl fell unconscious.

* * *

"_I love you._"

The girl's green eyes shot open, frantically taking in her surroundings. Semi-transparent walls blocked most of the sunlight, the smell of new plastic invading her senses. The pain in her shoulder wasn't something she had dreamed up like the voice.

One glance down at her torso brought her face-to-face with culprit of the mind numbing pain. An arrow. Well, half an arrow. The second half was lodged so deep into her shoulder the girl thought it might have gone straight through the other side.

_'Quiet, calm, conscious,'_ the girl chanted to herself silently as she brought shaky hands up and around the shaft of wood protruding from her torso. She closed her eyes tight and pulled with all of her strength, slowly removing the cursed object centimeter by centimeter.

It was a true test of her endurance to keep silent during the ordeal. Tears mixed with sweat on her face, sending rivets like rain water down her neck. She could taste blood in her mouth from where she had broken her chapped lips, but the smell of iron and the lack of tension on the arrow brought the small girl back to reality.

'_Quiet, calm, conscious_' she all but shouted in her mind as she put pressure on the weeping wound.

It was then that she let out a small cry of pain. Being shot hurt.

Winston Churchill once said that 'nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result'. The girl figured that he had never pulled an arrow out of his shoulder or killed his previously dead mother, so the girl couldn't blame him for his love of adventure.

The sound of a zipper pulling brought the girl's thoughts careening around to the present. Winston Churchill was a memory once again, the pain was even a memory at the threatening sound. Epinephrine suddenly pumped through her veins, throwing her into a 'flight or fight' frame of mind. She went for the former.

With adrenaline enhanced sight and speed, the girl brought herself to her knees and searched the room for her pack, or her machete, or even just something she could protect herself with. She found nothing. The tent wasn't empty- it was obvious that someone lived in the small four-by-four foot piece of plastic- but there was nothing she could use as a weapon.

The bloody arrow, discarded during the painful cry or the spiel about Winston Churchill, the girl couldn't remember which, was retrieved from the edge of the sleeping bag.

The door was nearly fully unzipped now.

"You awake?" A male voice called, his voice little higher than a whisper.

He heard nothing, and rather than leave well enough alone, he let himself into the occupied space.

The man was large. Dark eyes were casted into shadows from his deep brow. His skin, although caucasian, was dark and sweaty from working in under the Georgian sun.

The girl backed herself into the corner as he watched her with his dark eyes.

"Woah," he exclaimed, raising his hands in a surrendering gesture. "Girl, I ain't going to harm you." He took in a breath, waiting a few seconds before continuing. "My name is Shane Walsh," he explained. "I'm a police officer and the leader of a small group of survivors."

Shane watched the girl's face as he spoke; waiting for some kind of emotion to flash over her features. Nothing happened. The girl's green eyes remained trained on him and her bleeding lips held in neither a scowl nor a smile. Her body posture suggested fear.

"Look," he started again, running a hand through his brown curls. "We're real sorry that you got shot. I see you managed to get the arrow out," he pointed at the mentioned object pointed in his direction. "I'm going to ask one of the women to come clean up the wound. Okay?"

The woman who promptly entered the tent was not what the girl expected. The man had been so large, so _in charge_, that she half expected the camp of his to be full of police and military. But the woman who ducked through the flap in the tent looked frail.

Actually, she looked like a mom.

"Awh, sweetie," the woman cooed, frowning at the mess of blood on the younger girl's shirt and the fearful, defensive position in the corner. Immediately the wounded dropped her weapon and relaxed the tiniest amount. She couldn't hurt a woman who looked like her momma. "I'm Carol," the woman explained with her head tilted to the side and her light eyes watching. Carol's gray hair was cut a lot shorter than the girl's mother's had been, but they had similar features. Thin face, long nose, small lips. The girl leaned forward a tiny bit.

"Elodie," She whispered in the voice of someone forgotten.

It seemed like years since she had heard her own voice. Maybe it had been. Maybe being dehydrated and starving for weeks on end made people forget things like vocal chords and sound. Either way, Elodie felt weak from the effort of just saying one word. Forming a cognitive sentence would take years.

"I'm just going to stop the bleeding, Elodie," the woman said as she shuffled closer in the tent. The girl didn't shy away from Carol. She didn't cry out when her shirt was removed- a painful task that involved lifting both arms above her head. She didn't even hiss when the wound was disinfected with a bottle of peroxide. She did, however, faint when Carol began threading a needle with expect fingers.

* * *

Two days passed in a blur. Most of Elodie's life had passed in a blur, either from drug use or just from her disposition. She couldn't clarify. She could recall important memories, but they would play back in her mind like a veil covered her eyes. Most of her fever induced dreams included the soft face of a woman with long features and sad eyes or the jawline of a man that was so sharp it could rival his hunting knife. Shrouded flashes of scenery flashed behind her closed eyes; a yard collecting the rusted shells of trucks, the dense forests with tree canopies that obstructed the sunlight, a dirt driveway filled with potholes and overgrown thorny bushes.

Elodie sweated out her fever and thought nothing of her rules. She was neither calm or conscious. The quiet remained. Quiet was Elodie's golden rule; one word that was etched into every fiber of her being. She couldn't distinguish between memory, fantasy, and reality. The feeling of cool water rushing down her throat could have been from her childhood or from her time spent in the tent.

Carol was there, in the moments Elodie thought she wasn't dreaming. Sometimes there were other people; a small girl with blonde hair cropped to her chin, a boy with a smile that matched the sun in intensity, a woman with long brown hair and sad eyes.

When the fever sputtered and fell away, taking the veil of mystery with it, the girl blinked and stared at her settings with clarity.

She realized, first, that this was not her home. Secondly, the girl realized that she had not dreamed the past two months. The dead had, in fact, risen to eat her innards. Finally, with pain welling in her heart, she realized that all those moments she had seen with her eyes closed were a thing of the past. The sharp jawed man, the soft woman, the rusted cars; they were all things that had anchored her to reality. She was out at sea now. Crashing against the turbulent waves of a post apocalyptic world that had no intention of letting her settle.

The sun was half way to noon when the girl exited the tent on shaky legs. There had been water next to the blanket she was sleeping on. It quickly disappeared, but Elodie's throat no longer burned with each breath.

The sun hurt her eyes, making her squint and lose sight for the first minute. In Africa the Tiv people considered the sun to be the son of their supreme being, Awondo. The Aztecs worshipped Tonatiuh as their sun god. In Egypt all goddesses are related to the sun. Elodie could care less about all those ancient civilizations that worshipped the sun since the beginning of written history. She wanted to cast it to hell, damn it to eternity in the depth of purgatory. Alas, the girl held no such power.

"Hello there," a male voice was calling. Disorientated and blind, Elodie couldn't turn towards the source. She couldn't assess the man as a threat. She was weak.

Finally, the white began to dissipate. Spots remained, blooming when she blinked, but the scenery was now visible.

As was the man. Sitting on the roof of an old RV in a fisherman's cap, the older gentleman who had called out to the younger girl smiled kindly and gave a little wave.

"You okay?" He asked as the girl remained staring at him.

Elodie nodded twice and tried to send the man a small smile. He nodded and went back to doing what he had been doing before she exited the tent; surveying the area with a pair of binoculars.

"Woo-wee!" a different, more southern sounding voice yelled, much louder than the man atop the RV. "Darelina! Come 'n 'ave a look at this _fine _piece a ass!"

Elodie had turned to this man. He looked like her neighbor back home; tall, wide, and muscular. The shaved head, cut off sleeves, and glossed over eyes added to her comparison. Yet she couldn't remember the name of that man.

'_Quiet, calm, conscious,'_ she reminded herself, trying not to back away from the redneck eyeing her like a piece of meat.

"Can ya' talk, sweet thang?" He asked with a grin before spitting out of the side of his mouth. The girl just shrugged with eyebrows furrowed over her large, green eyes.

"Let her be, Merle," yet another voice commanded. Elodie had a name for this man; Shane. She distantly remembered his evil black eyes in the back of her mind. The girl didn't turn to the police officer. She had her head tilted to the side a little, catching a glimpse of the figure walking from behind the impressively sized redneck.

This new face was scowling at her as he rounded Merle, standing slightly to the side. Elodie still watched him, though. She took in his blue eyes, dirty blond hair, muscled arms. Mostly, though, she watched the crossbow slung over his shoulder.

"I don't need to lis'en to ya, _off-ice-er_," Merle was sneering, spitting once again.

The girl didn't wait to hear more; she didn't like how many words the redneck was wasting. He was just picking fights; trying to get Shane riled up. As Elodie turned her shoulder met the arm of the Officer previously mentioned. The pain that rolled through her body at the contact was like fire in her veins. She hissed, biting her lower lip before scampering away- avoiding eye contact with Shane who was trying to apologize.

Elodie had a talent for tuning out sounds and words. In the back of her mind she registered that several people in the camp were talking but she didn't want to know what they said.

"Carol," the young girl whispered, looking around the scattered camp. There were no women in sight, though. Only Merle, Shane, the man with the crossbow, and the elderly gentleman keeping watch on top of his vehicle.

Elodie chose the last man to ask. It was a challenge to climb the ladder up to the roof, but she found the effort and pain well worth it when she took in the sight before it.

The quarry was beautiful. In the back of her mind she remembered the warmth in her body when she had first seen the sight; how happy she had been. Now, without being shot with an arrow to ruin the moment, the girl stood in awe. The water was the most amazing color blue; not like the ocean in movies, or lakes, or even the swamp she lived near. No, this water was close to the color of sky, if not even darker. She stared at it for longer than she meant to.

"Dear?" The man was asking. Elodie turned to him, eyebrows shooting up into her hairline. "You with me?"

The girl nodded, unsure if she should say something in response.

"My name is Dale," the man explained with another smile.

"Elodie," was the whispered response. They fell into silence, until the girl managed to courage to ask her question. "Carol?"

Dale seemed to understand right away what Elodie wanted.

"The women are down at the water," he explained, motioning her closer with his hand. When she was just a foot away he pointed to the shore. "If you take the path," he pointed a couple yards away towards the bushes, "you can get down to quarry. Carol is washing clothes with Lori, and Amy and Andrea are about to go fishing."

Elodie nodded her head in thanks.

Elodie felt dirty as she watched the women wash clothes. Her own attire was weeks overdue for a cleaning. Dirty jeans hugged her legs uncomfortably, a v-neck shirt that had once been white was stained an ugly mix between red and brown, complete with an arrow sized hole in the shoulder. The girl figured that her hair must look something fierce, and her body must smell.

"You can bathe if you want," Carol was saying, watching how Elodie was picking at her dirty clothes and glancing at the water. "Sophia and Carl went back to camp to play with the other kids. Only us women are down here."

The young girl shrugged, glancing at both women sitting with buckets in front of them. Lori, the woman with brown hair from her dream, was nodding along with Carol.

Unbuckling her belt, Elodie shimmied out of her once new jeans. Her underwear, a pair of blue boyshorts, had seen better days, but the girl didn't care much. Slowly she removed the shirt, careful not to tug at her wound too much. Once clad in only underwear, the girl started wading into the water.

There would have been a sense of satisfaction if the water had been ice cold. The sun had heated it up, though. To the temperature of the air at night.

Before the apocalypse Elodie had been thin. After weeks on her own, she looked like a walking skeleton. After rubbing her arms and legs raw, trying to get off the blood of fallen foes, the girl realized that it wasn't all blood; some of the spots were bruises. She felt clean regardless, even sending a little smile towards the two women sitting at the shore chatting away.

"You're not very chatty, eh?" Lori asked in her calm voice. Elodie just shrugged and dove under the water, rinsing her hair.

Once all the guts and blood were successfully washed from the girls body and hair she exited the water and sat on a high boulder to dry in the sun.

Carol walked back up to camp with a smile, reassuring Elodie that she would be back in a minute, leaving the young girl and the woman together.

"I know you're not much of a talker," Lori was saying as she set a scrubbed shirt into a pile. "But it's important for you to tell me a few things." The young girl nodded her head, shrugging her shoulders the slightest bit to show she wasn't offended. "First, and this question is just 'cause I'm curious, but how old are you?"

"19," the girl whispered; startled once again by the sound of her voice. Her southern accent was more prominent than the woman sitting on the ground; she sounded like the hick Merle. "Maybe 20."

Lori let out a laugh, and smiled over at Elodie.

"Carol and I thought you were 16," she admitted. "You're a little small for an adult," Lori continued. The nineteen, maybe twenty, year old just shrugged again. Being 5'4 and thin as a twig made hiding easy, but she did _look_ like a kid. "Alright, next question; where'd you come from?"

"Jesup."

"Did you go through Atlanta?"

This question made Elodie's breath catch in her throat. The hairs on the back of neck, still wet from her cleaning, stood up on end. She nodded in response, not willing to elaborate further. Atlanta had been a fools dream, the girl reminded herself.

"Are you going to be a threat to this group?" Lori finally asked. Unlike the other questions that had been asked with smiles and a light voice, this question was stern and dark.

"I ain't never hurt no one," Elodie whispered, glancing at the quarry water rather than the woman. "I ain't good with words, or people, though."

Carol was making her way back down to the beach as the girl spoke. In her arms, folding nice and neat, was a pair of pants Lori had agreed to give up- as well as some underwear- and a shirt that Sophia had offered for Elodie.

"Brought you some clothes," Carol announced with a motherly smile. Lori watched as the girl brightened up, flashing a genuine smile at the older woman holding gifts.

Elodie had actually forgotten that she was lounging on a rock, right out in the open, wearing nothing but her boyshorts and a bra. She flushed, realizing that anyone could come down and see her, and quickly accepted the aforementioned pile from Carol.

She lopped off into the woods, only a little farther away, and quickly dressed.

The shirt from Sophia was a button up; much appreciated by Elodie as she grimaced each time she had to lift her arm more than an inch above her side. It was cute; a horse pattern danced over the red denim. A collar covered her neck, and the lack of sleeves left her arms free for movement. Next, Elodie pulled on Lori's pants. They were too long by a few inches, and even bigger around the waist, but she rolled up the ends and reminded herself to fetch her belt from her ruined clothing.

She emerged silently from the woods and made her way back to the two kind women.

"Much better," Carol called with a smile.

"Now I can see 19," Lori joked.

The girl smiled back.

For the first time in months, maybe even in years, Elodie forgot about counting. She forgot about '_Quiet, calm, conscious_' and she just enjoyed the feel of the sun on her skin and the smile plastered on her face. She hadn't ever thought about a moment like this. She knew other people felt this way all the time, but Elodie thought herself incapable.

A word to describe how she felt; extraordinary.

Sure, it is an adjective, but 'very unusual or remarkable' was how she _felt_. It was nice. It was welcomed.

* * *

Winston Churchill once said that 'if you're going through hell, keep going.' Elodie rather enjoyed that quote. Actually, she rather enjoyed Winston Churchill's wisdom on most subjects. But that quote had always been a pillar for Elodie; before the walking dead it had given her courage to get through school and work, afterwards it had given her courage to survive. The world really was hell. It always had been. The only difference was that before the first outbreak, before half the population was gone in a week, people had done a well enough job hiding their devilish tendencies. Those hellish tendencies ran rampant in this new world.

Hell, Elodie wished she could explain to Dale, was the setting equivalent to Merle Dixon.

Although the young girl could relax around Carol, and even the kids in the camp, she couldn't stop her mantra from playing on repeat when Merle Dixon decided to have his 'words of the day' with her.

Dale and Elodie were sitting on the roof of the Winnebago Chieftain. The young girl had been welcomed by Dale as a member of his little flock of adopted daughters, and she rather enjoyed the optimism of the older man. She hadn't really known anyone as nice as him before; not a male at least.

"Looks like Daryl brought dinner," Dale announced suddenly, bringing the girl away from her wandering thoughts about Hell and nice men and Winston Churchill. The elder was right, anyways. Daryl, the crossbow wielding brother of the detested, yet tolerated, Merle Dixon was emerging from the woods on the far side of the camp near his tent. Slung over her shoulder, close to his bow, was a rope littered with forest critters; several squirrels, three rabbits, a large bird of some sort.

"Arrow," Elodie told Dale while rising from the yellow folding chair that lived under the sun 24/7. She rushed over to the ladder and shimmied down. Reaching through the passenger window of the vehicle she rummaged around blindly with her hand, finally grasping the weapon she was looking for.

Elodie had cleaned the fletching, kept it near her, for a little over a week now. Sure, it had once been inside her body and therefor, probably, belonged to her in some right, but she wanted to return it. Daryl hadn't muttered a word to her since she arrived, and now she would make the first move.

Fingering the pointed tip of the arrow, Elodie made her way towards where Daryl sat. He was laying out a squirrel on a wooden box, spreading it's limbs like jesus on the cross.

"Daryl," she whispered in her soft, somehow musical, southern accent. The man's head snapped up immediately, startled by having missed her quiet approach. His blue eyes narrowed, watching the annoying girl swallow a dry lump of air. Instead of saying anything, either of them, Elodie held out her hand. The procured arrow rested on her palm, ready for the man to take.

He did so quickly.

"'Bout time," he muttered under his breath. He was annoyed, the girl noticed. "Thought ya'd decided ta keep it."

When the young girl before him made no move to either speak or leave, Daryl just shook his head and looked down at his squirrel again.

He began cutting into the little creature when Elodie sat down on the opposite side of the box. When he met her gaze she held up her hunting knife and motioned to the other animals waiting to be skinned.

"Ya know whatcha doin'?" He asked, irritated. The girl nodded, and Daryl replied with a grunt.

They both sat in comfortable silence for the next half hour, skinning the animals for dinner. Elodie would cut the tailbone of a squirrel expertly, then effectively pull the skin off of it's body and legs.

She left the rabbits for him to finish, not feeling as confident about that act, and rose from her position.

"I feel bad 'bout shootin' ya," Daryl admitted, squinting up at the girl with blood and guts all over his hands. "Thought ya' was a walker," he explained.

"S'ok," was Elodie's reply equipped with a genuine smile. She walked away, then, before any more words could be said.

Merle would be returning soon from his own trip in the woods. The elder Dixon often _said _he was going hunting, but rather than returning to camp with squirrels and rabbits like the younger, his eyes would be glassy and far away while his tongue became sharper.

Elodie knew that kind of man. She liked that Daryl wasn't like his brother. Even if he did shoot her.

The young girl wandered back to the side of the camp with Dale's Winnebago and Carol's tent. Intent on finding something to do or someone to sit with, Elodie glanced around.

Jim, a middle-aged man who had lost his family during the outbreak, was fiddling with the engine of the RV. Elodie hadn't asked, but he had told her about being a mechanic. Jim was a good man; he didn't speak to often, and when he did he chose his words right, he didn't give her stares like Shane and Merle, and he never asked questions. He was right as rain in Elodie's mind, and she would have loved to watch him tinker away with the hoses, but Carl was running up the hill with Sophia in tow.

"Elodieeee," Carl was calling, headed straight in her direction. She held up her hands to warn him to stop, but at the sight of the blood coated hands he halted immediately. Worried, the young girl pointed in the direction of Daryl, where he sat skinning the rabbits.

"Squirrel," she stated, smiling sheepishly. Sophia looked like she might hurl, but the little boy just grinned back.

"C_oo_l," he announced bouncing in her direction. "Mom said that she could use your help down at the water," he babbled, still grinning. Elodie didn't move so Carl tugged on her arm. "Come _on_," he ordered, rushing down the path.

Andrea, a blond civil rights lawyer; her sister Amy, a young college student; Lori and Carol were knee deep in water, washing clothing. Elodie didn't like Andrea much. Dale loved her and Amy, but the elder blonde was just plain mean sometimes. She was one of those people who hid their hellish tendencies until the apocalypse, but Elodie wasn't fooled. Andrea didn't have a filter, and she didn't hide her dislike for the softest spoken member of their group.

Rolling her eyes as she noticed the children racing down the hill with Elodie, Andrea turned to her sister and whispered something.

"Elodie, there you are!" Lori said with a laugh, flicking her wet fingers at her happy son. "Carol and I wanted to talk to you for a minute."

"Sure," the young girl answered, crouching low to the ground so she could be eye level with the women.

Ed, Carol's horrible husband, was just a few yards away smoking a cigarette on the back of his truck. He didn't do much at the camp other than complain and hit his wife. Now, though, he watched the contours of Elodie's body; he liked 'em young.

"Squirrel," Elodie quickly explained when the woman sent curious glances at her hands.

"Oh," Carol muttered, then turned back to her washing when her husband began to rise off the truck. He didn't like it when she was lazy.

"I think some of the group are going into the city soon," Lori explained. "Shane mentioned it to me earlier. Probably just Glenn, T Dog, and Morales-"

"If they're going, I'm going," Andrea cut in with a huff.

"Okay, well, perfect then," the brown haired woman continued. "It's a supply run, so I thought I might ask them to pick you up some more clothes."

Elodie was still wearing Sophia's horse shirt and Lori's jeans, but she hadn't really thought about getting clothes.

"Sure," the girl whispered, letting a smile spread on her face.

"You'd be a small right? Maybe extra small?" Elodie nodded, and Lori turned to Andrea. "Think you could also grab Ellie some underwear? She didn't come prepared for the end of retail therapy," she joked, gaining a fake smile from the blond.

"Sure thing," Andrea agreed before going back to her washing.

* * *

"Amy," Elodie whispered, walking towards the young, crying blonde. She was sitting away from the camp, not wishing for anyone to see her tears. Andrea was supposed to be back last night, or this morning, but it was now mid afternoon and she was worried everyone was dead. Amy watched the other girl approach. Elodie was sweet. Quiet and shy, but very generous with smiles and warmth. "Winston Churchill once said that 'we shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.'"

Amy blinked a few times, curious. Elodie hadn't said a complete sentence to anyone in the camp; not in the 10 days she'd been a part of their group.

"Don't worry 'bout your sister," the girl added, sitting in the dirt under the elder oak with Amy. "She's strong 'nd a survivor; if they are suff'ring I know she'll prevail."

They both sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the shadows on the ground lengthen with passing time. Finally, the tears in the blonde girl's eyes dried up.

"Thank you," Amy whispered. "It means a lot to me...to hear you say that."

Elodie just smiled, rose from her spot on the ground, and held her hand out. They still had rabbit stew for dinner.

**I'm sorry if you noticed all my comma splices; I am a bit of a comma-splice queen! Please read and review, otherwise I'll probably not post another chapter. **

**OH, Winston Churchill will be a common occurrence. I love him, the british love him, so why can't a good southern girl love him? His quotes are so relevant to The Walking Dead- I couldn't help but make him a part of this story! xxxx**


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